Words and Pictures by John Wreford

I wasn’t following in the footsteps of Herodotus, at least, not on purpose, but somehow our paths did keep crossing, it was getting awkward. You know how it is when you have been stalking someone and then, suddenly, you come face to face with them.

It’s been about two and half thousand years since the Father of History made a similar journey and the route is no less interesting today than it was then. The Histories is hard going, amusing, and mostly wrong, but somehow, I keep going back for more.

The Egyptians agreed with their climate, which is unlike any other, and with the river, which shows a nature different from all other rivers.

I would travel by train, (I am almost certain he didn’t). I had already been north through the Delta to Alexandria and I was now south of Cairo. The idea, a loose brief, of following the Nile to Aswan, close to where the river enters Egypt from Sudan,  I would talk to farmers and fishermen and those whose livelihood depends on the seemingly eternal flow of the longest river in Africa. I wanted to learn of the potential risks posed by climate change on rural Egypt. I also wanted a photo or two, and, an anecdote would be good.

I woke just after dawn to a tangerine sky, the train crossing the Nile at Nagaa Hammadi, a slight mist rising over the water, fields of sugar cane and palm trees dotted carelessly here and there, beside the train track a narrow strip of cultivated earth, given over to cabbages, being grown guerrilla style. Little of the landscape would have changed since the time of Herodotus. The Nile threads its way from south to north, Fellaheen working the narrow carpet of green on either bank.

Climate experts predict that by 2060 Egypt will have lost half of its already limited agriculture production, the World Bank is predicting that unless urgent action is taken there will be more than 200 million climate-related migrants by the year 2050. It doesn’t rain in Egypt; the Nile is the only source of water. 

For the next few days, I explored the Nile-side villages not far from the ancient capital of Thebes, where Homer once sat in cafés and scratched out chapters of the Iliad. I sat with Mahmoud, his blue eyes glinting in the winter sun, we drank tea and talked of his son who worked on the tourist boats cruising Upper Egypt, he was proud of his son and unlike previous generations he would not have to work the land.

In a somewhat romantic mood, I decided to take the afternoon off and visit the Ramesseum, part of the Theban necropolis and memorial to a long-since deceased Pharaoh and more importantly, to me at least, the location of Ozymandias, the sonnet by Percy Shelly.

I met a traveler from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

On a previous visit I made, what I thought at the time, was a rather fetching black and white image of the trunk-less legs mentioned in the poem, the negatives are gathering dust somewhere in Damascus. I thought I could do a better job this time.

I had dawdled and now the light was dwindling, as I left the ruins I asked the guards if there was a route through the sugar cane fields back to the road, they gave me directions and I set off.

The fields were neatly arranged with an easy path between irrigation canals crisscrossing; as I walked I startled a farmer gathering fodder, we chatted for a while, I asked his name, “guess” he said, “Mohamed” I answered and he laughed and I tried to explain what I was doing wandering around his plantation.

Egypt is the gift of the Nile, he said and asked if I knew Herodotus, our paths had crossed I replied. It did rain once Mohamed told me, it was 1986 he recalled. Like that time in 1976 when it didn’t rain in the UK, I thought.

The river has dropped by a meter, he said, and we talked of what was happening south of the Egyptian border, they have rain, he said referring to the Ethiopians, who are busy building a dam that potentially will reduce the flow of water to Egypt even more. There is no Egypt without the Nile, Mohamed emphasized. Egypt very well knows that, and of the potential consequences if the Ethiopians don’t agree on a suitable compromise.

Mahmoud had caught me flirting with his wife, and, as a gentleman invited me in for breakfast, he poured me tea while we sat in wicker chairs outside his mud and straw-built house. Selat, his wife, was still giggling as she kneaded fresh dough into discs, her abaya sleeves rolled up as she worked.

Mahmoud worked from time to time for various local farmers, his plot was small and well-tended, he introduced me to all the animals, a few chickens, a sheep, some geese, better than guard dogs he told me. The house with its dirt floor was only a couple of rooms, the electricity paid for with a pre-paid card he grumbled, but I didn’t notice much that needed electricity: a single light bulb, perhaps a fridge was tucked away somewhere.

Selat called Mahmoud to help with the bread, and I helped him carry a wicker tray with 20 or so of the doughy discs to lie in the sun. I said it was time for me to leave, we shook hands and as I was leaving Mahmoud asked that I show them in a positive light. It may have seemed an odd thing to say but local media had been full of stories of Youtubers and Vloggers telling tall tales to get views. I had seen them, patronizing cheap shots that ought to be ignored but sadly the knee-jerk reaction from the Egyptian regime is to clamp down on tourists waving cameras around.

I spent the rest of the morning cycling through dusty villages beside the Nile. Selat was not alone in preparing bread, almost every household was doing the same, smoke was rising from mud brick ovens, bare arsed kids feeding fires with dry palm fronds. I watched as a farmer sold a giant cabbage. After the deal was done the massive veg was loaded onto the back of a 3-wheeled motorbike and driven to the market.

I found a peaceful spot between two villages and slipped down the bank and sat beneath the shade of a drooping palm, the cool morning air had gone now and the sun was high. In the harsh light, the river was a silver-grey colour and had almost no current, I took some pebbles and skimmed them across the surface, the light twinkling slightly as the ripples fan out. I thought about the impending ripple effect and the future of life in rural villages in the face of climate change combined with poor governance and the massive dam being built downstream in Ethiopia.

I will let my unwitting companion have the last word; 

And certainly, in thus speaking of the Greeks the Egyptians say nothing but what is true. But now let me tell the Egyptians how the case stands with themselves. If, as I said before, the country below Memphis which is the land that is always rising, continues to increase in height at a rate at which it has risen in times gone by, how will it be possible for the inhabitants of that region to avoid hunger, when they will certainly have no rain, and the river will not be able to overflow their corn fields?

This is just a snippet of an ongoing project, exploring the effects of climate change and migration in Egypt. I plan to self-publish a magazine with the results, so I really appreciate all the support I can get, so please feel free to share on your socials, and don’t forget to subscribe to get the next installment. 

John Wreford is a freelance professional photographer based in Istanbul, specializing in images of the Middle East & Balkans. “For ten years I lived in Damascus, Syria where I watched a beautiful country slip into a vile war. I find art, in one form or another to be the answer to everything. My life now is about telling stories of the human condition, the good the bad and the beautiful. More recently I have returned to analogue and historical photographic processes as a medium to help share those stories.“

See/read more at John Wreford Photographer and on Instagram at johnwreford.